Renowned trauma surgeon Thomas M. Scalea, MD, to lead collaborative effort to create comprehensive center to reduce and respond to violence.
As the rain cleared Sept. 6, hundreds of bright orange ribbons could be seen hanging on the branches of a tree on the corner of Penn and Lombard streets. The orange symbolized awareness of gun violence, and each ribbon represented a life lost to gun violence in Baltimore this past year. The ribbons were the backdrop of a news conference announcing the launch of the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Center for Violence Prevention.
“We’re confident that taking a research-based approach is the answer,” UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, said in his opening remarks. “Using our resources combined with the families and communities affected by violence is how we begin to start solving this problem.”
Bringing together the expertise and resources of two of Baltimore’s major anchor institutions — UMB and the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center — trauma surgeon Thomas M. Scalea, MD, and Jarrell announced the creation of the Center for Violence Prevention to help reduce and respond to violence in Baltimore City and beyond.
“We want this to grow and become a focal point for violence prevention efforts in a much, much larger way,” said Scalea, the Honorable Francis X. Kelly Distinguished Professor of Trauma Surgery, director of the Program in Trauma at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), and physician-in-chief at Shock Trauma. “Taking care of [more than] 600 people shot this year is emotionally exhausting. It’s taxing. It’s discouraging. It’s everything you can imagine.
“If a patient comes in with a lethal anatomic injury or if they come in with their heart no longer beating, we’re out of the game," added Scalea, who will lead the center. "There’s nothing we can do to fix that problem. The only fix for that problem is to not have it happen, and this is what today is all about.”